


Not the One

by TabulaInNaufragio



Category: Animal Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Adrian is alone, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Indonesia, M/M, Memories, Post-Canon, Post-Relationship, Pre-Relationship, Valentine's Day, and misses Deran, and pre canon?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:41:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29856189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TabulaInNaufragio/pseuds/TabulaInNaufragio
Summary: Adrian is alone in Indonesia on Valentines day. He reminisces on his youth with Deran and their relationship.
Relationships: Deran Cody/Adrian Dolan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Not the One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrian is alone in Indonesia on Valentines day. He reminisces on his youth with Deran and their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set 6 months post season 4. Title is from the song of the same name by Mikky Ekko.

There’s nearly 400 thousand dollars in an account that Adrian has yet to touch. He’s really not sure he'll ever want to. A final fuck you. Deran sent him away _-Deran sent him away-_ with 20k in hand. He’s barely made a dent in that either.

The place that was rented for him has been paid for, for the year. It’s lovely actually. Has a little back patio with an outdoor shower (and an indoor one too) and it’s about 10 steps from the beach. Just across a little roughly paved road lies the most perfect and consistent surf Adrian thinks he’s ever seen. The back yard is nice, fenced off with high concrete block walls and, there's lots of greenery, big leafy plants Adrian has no names for. He has a hammock in the back, strung up to one of the clothesline posts, the other end attached to the post that holds up the clear plastic lean-to roof over the slab patio. There's also a small washer outside that sometimes works. He doesn’t- can’t- forget that this place was supposed to be for two people. On days when he doesn't surf or there's a warm tropical rain, he sits under the roof, in a little chair that's almost collapsed. But most of the time he likes the hammock. He’ll sit and read until his skin gets too hot and he has to move to the shade. There's room for him to exercise and he’s bulked up a bit. Adrian's grown his hair out, longer than he would have allowed for it to be at home. He has the beginnings of a tan surprisingly, considering he mostly burns. His face has a lot more colour in it too, maybe from sleeping, eating healthy and a lack of drug running, and the stress of possibly doing 20 years in prison. He's under no illusion that he might actually be caught one day though. He thinks about it every morning. Is today the day they’ll arrest me? Who ‘they’ are Adrian doesn't give much thought. The Indonesian police, the FBI, or Livengood himself? No doubt they are wondering when he is. It's been six months. Despite what Deran put him through he hopes that there wasn’t too much trouble for him. He hates himself for it but he misses Deran. Misses waking up next to him in the morning in their bed. And misses how’d he’d make breakfast. Always breakfast and often dinner on nights he’d get home early from the bar. Six months he’s been here but he still misses Deran's cooking.

There's not much for him to do honestly. He reads and surfs and goes on long walks down the beach. There are some trails not too far from here he sometimes hikes. He doesn't have a car so there's nowhere to drive. But he does have a bike so he bikes to the market for groceries twice a week. He hasn’t smoked in 6 months, doesn't even know where he’d buy weed. Maybe if he made friends with the locals or some tourists but he doesn't socialize much. Never really been much of a talker. When he was younger Jess was his only friend and then when he was older Deran was his friend and Deran's friends, his small crew, were his friends by proxy. They all got along well enough, days spent surfing or dirt biking out somewhere near Joshua Tree, or skating through Long Beach on weekend excursions. They’d party; drink and get super high and that was really what they had in common. Not much deeper when Adrian thinks about it. It was deeper with Deran, and Adrian tries hard not to think about that. There isn't much to do but reminisce though.

He thinks Deran stuck by him more and longer than his other friends because he was quiet, not as goofy as Ox, not as loud and annoying as Colby could be. It was easier to be Adrian’s friend, for sure. He didn’t ask a lot of questions. And maybe it was the fact that Deran was in love with him. But only maybe. Adrian still isn’t really sure of that. What was true and what wasn’t. It's hard to pick out the good from the bad when so much of their relationship was intermittent and often shitty.

Why Deran chose him to be friends, Adrian can’t remember. He wasn’t looking for trouble, but trouble had a habit of finding him, and usually, it was in the form of Deran Cody. At first, he didn’t seem like that much trouble at all. The attraction between them was almost instant. It always had been, though Adrian might have been the only one acknowledging it. They both felt it though. They were on the competition circuit at the same time and that was how they met, but it was being at the same school that brought them together. Out of 2,400 students, they somehow had a class together. Adrian was also a year older and a grade above but with the chaos of Nico up and moving them in the middle of the semester of the previous year, he’d gotten stuck repeating a few courses. Was it 9th-grade science? Or English? Either way, they were seated next to one another (alphabetical last names) but Deran was gone more than he was there. That was the year he really started doing poorly in school and exceedingly well in the water. Adrain would give him the notes and assignments from the previous class. Deran never did them anyway but for Adrian it was an excuse to talk to the cute boy next to him. Looking back if he’d known who Deran was and what he’d become to him he would have walked out of that class and never returned. But Adrain was stupid and in love before he even realized it. Deran, at 14 already had two tattoos, his wrist one, some kind of family crest with ‘Cody’ written below, and his Lion that he’d proudly show off by wearing nothing but tank tops. Adrian was shy and Deran didn’t say much, so conversations were limited. Then one day while passing Adrian in the hall Deran noticed the skateboard in his locker and asked him if he wanted to skip and go skating the next time they had the same class. He agreed.

Adrian learned it was easy to get him talking when it was about surfing and they could chat for hours about technique and comps. Adrian started skipping regularity with him, which was way more fun than whatever they were supposed to be learning. They’d bum around the pier and shoplift (well, Deran would, Adrain would be his lookout) anywhere that wasn’t oceanside (morals, y’know) and smoke up on the beach in the places they knew they wouldn’t get caught. They’d compete on weekends, stay at the same motel if they could afford it. Smurf had cut Deran off for a while at that time. Adrian had found that out later. She was unimpressed at Deran's singleminded focus on surfing and how it took away from the family. Craig would sell low-grade coke for the gas money and if there was any leftover they could maybe afford a single bed motel room. When he turned 16, he was ready to take surfing all the way, sponsorships and contracts but somehow Smurf had a way of making things not happen as well as how could dematerialize them. They were good friends for a long time but the older her boys got the stronger surfs grip on them became and Deran started slowly pulling back.

Despite Deran being the thing Adrian orbited around, Deran had been keeping him at an arm's length. It took years for Adrian to figure out why. It was twofold, the crime aspect of his family and him being gay. The crime part he learned first, though it wasn’t hard to figure out. Deran was always good at stealing. Candy bars, movies at the rental store, cars, you name it. He’d gotten drunk at a party one night, and spilled the family secret to Adrian on the tailgate of someone else's truck. To Adrian, it was a show of trust but to Deran it was a slip-up and a major one. He had dropped out not long before and had to only be 17. After the party, Adrian didn’t hear from Deran for two weeks. Then one night he showed up at Adrian's window, demanded to be let in, and then threatened him to not say shit. Adrian promised, of course not, who would he tell anyway? He appeased Deran with a joint and let him crash on the couch.

Six months later, graduated, Adrian was living in the back of Tao's shop working on boards. Nico had kicked him outta the house after Adrian had come out. Jess was in San Francisco working on her degree at the time and Adrian would have left to stay with her but the competitions in Oceanside were enough for him to make a little cash on the side. Somewhere in there, Adrian lost almost a year with Deran, he was around but also not really. They didn't hang out, didn't talk. When he finally saw him again, around town, with his brothers, a scary little gang, he was more tatted than ever and had a bit of a beard going.

The years seemed to pass quickly from there. Almost 21, but no future in surfing, Deran seemed lost and had crawled back to Smurf. He was sleeping in his old room. Hanging out with his brothers and almost no-one else. Not at in the surf, not at the shops, bumming around town.They talk only sporadically and see each other at the odd competition but It's like he’s disappeared. There are no whispers of the Cody’s skipping town. As far as Adrian knows Tao is still paying Smurf rent. Just laying low then. And Adrian misses him.

It summertime when he runs into Deran runs into him at the beach just after getting out of the water.

"Adrian!" The voice is instantly recognizable despite being slightly muffled by the cigarette in the mouth of the speaker. Adrian turns around to see Deran standing on the berm on the beach. He jogs over, surfboard under arm.

"D, how's it going man?" The elation in Adrian's voice is pure and Deran’s smile gleams. He holds out his hand and Adrian grabs on, comes in for a hug. “Where you been man?”

"Here and there," he’s cagey and changes the subject instantly. "Anyway, man Craig's throwing a party at Smurfs tonight, supposed to be a rager. You gonna come?”

"Of course. I'll be there." He can see Deran checking him out, he’s put on some bulk and so has Deran.

"Great." Deran smiles again. Throws his smoke in the parking lot dirt and makes him way back to the Scout. Adrian hates to watch him leave.

It wasn’t until Deran got wasted one night in the middle of November that he dared kiss Adrian. Long after he dropped out of school and surfing. Adrian has turned 22 that year and hadn’t seen Deran in almost 4 months. Out of nowhere, his phone was ringing, Deran on the line asking if he wanted to go night surfing. Adrian had agreed but it turned out to be fucking freezing- being as it was November- and they just ended up on the beach after 20 minutes of being in the water. They drank; drank so, so much and then Deran started ranting, yammering on about Smurf and Craig and scary-as-shit Pope and Baz and Julia. He never talked about Julia but he did that night, how angry he was at her for choosing the drugs over them. Adrian didn’t know much about her honestly except she had a kid, a cousin Deran hadn’t seen in years. And then when he was finally done yelling about his stupid family, and his beer bottle had run dry, he turned over to Adrian and pressed his cold lips to his. That was it, mostly a peck, chaste yet a little sloppy, but it was still something. Stirred something in Adrain he had thought he lost. And aliveness that he didn’t feel much unless he was in the water, on a board. They fell asleep in the back of Adrian’s truck that night, curled close together for warmth. Deran said he barely even remember kissing him the next morning when Adrian brought it up. So Adrian didn’t bother to ask him what it meant. After that, they’d messed around a bit. The months dragged on. Adrian made surfboards and didn't think about much other than Deran. Sometime in March theres a bank robbery gone wrong, Pope is locked up and Adrian doesn’t see Deran for a while. He texts him on occasion just to check in but receives only a couple of two-word responses, ‘I’m fine.’

And then Belize happened, and everything changed. He choses not to think about the last few years, its too soon, too close. Too much heart ache. Over the years Adrian can't remember all the phases their relationship went through; Friends and competitors and then they were fooling around, still, friends, having sex, not talking anymore, friends again, and then Adrian was gone, a sponsored surfer, back, having sex again, then a house and boyfriends and drug charges and his possible murder and then gone again. 10 plus years of friendship, how could he remember everything they've been through. Everything they've lost. Gone. Everything is gone.

Adrian is outside, stretched out on a towel in the grass, a warming bottle of beer next to him. It's past noon when he remembers what day it is. Listening to ‘Sound and Colour’ by Alabama Snakes and staring at the clouds. The song reminds him of summer and days spent on the beach in Oceanside. The nostalgia makes him ache. Summer time. But is not though is it? Its hard to count the seasons when its always sunny. It’s halfway through February, the 14th. Valentine's Day, Adrian realizes. Do they celebrate that in Indonesia? He doesn't know, hasn’t turned on the TV or left the house in a couple of days. No interaction with people to ask, even if he had remembered. There's a little stab of pain and a sense of sadness that lingers through him when he does though. It would have been their first Valentine's Day as an actual couple.

The rest of his day feels shot so he drinks three more beers, makes a salad for dinner, and then hits the waves an hour before dark. The days are getting shorter here, he doesn't think he’s used to being in the southern hemisphere where the days and seasons will be opposite. Hopefully, he’s close enough to the equator to not notice it too much. When he gets back he showers outside and strips down. He’s exhausted, not his best surf, missed a few good ones, and ate it on a few others. He's distracted thinking about Deran and what he’s been doing today. And tries not to wonder if he’s screwing someone else. That thought hurts a little too much and he doesn't want to cry. He towels off and heads inside to the AC and his bed. It's only 9 pm, but there's nothing for him to do now but think. He misses Deran, misses him like breathing. The last month before he escaped was tense and shitty but it's not hard to think of nicer memories. Hotter memories, and soon he’s kinda hard.

He strokes himself through his sheets and thinks of Deran, his ass, and that toned back, his nipples. And fuck, he’s fully hard in no time, shoving his hand under the blankets to fist his cock.

He thinks about Valentine’s Day three years ago (that long already?) when Deran blew him in the backseat of Adrian’s truck. It was after Belize, after East Mesa. They’d gone to the beach to eat sushi after the sun had set. When it got fully dark Deran took Adrian's keys and drove them up the PCH, winding around until they found a little town, somewhere Adrian would like to explore in the light of day. Deran spotted a small back road and they took it, bouncing from the potholes in the gravel until they were away from the light pollution and noise. He pulled off to the side, shut off the engine but let the music on, some classic rock channel, and then hauled Adrian into the backseat and tugged down his board shorts. His dick had been half-hard the entire drive. When Deran finally sucked him down after teasing the tip with his tongue, Adrian was ready to explode. His fingers tangled in those beautiful blonde locks, scratching gently at his scalp. Deran moaning softly around him, fingers digging into the muscles of Adrian’s thighs. Likely leaving bruises Adrian would admire in the mirror after his shower tomorrow. Deran is wicked with his mouth and it’s not the first time Adrian has known this. Deran giving blowjobs is like some kind of revelation, a spiritual awakening in a sense. Magical. He sucks him for what feels like forever, keeping him on the crest of his orgasm. Not quite ready to let Adrian drop in. He’s close when Deran pulls away.

“Come on my face,” Deran whispers it, breath warm against Adrian’s dick.

“Yeah? You want that?”

Deran nods and then sucks him back down halfway. Pulls back a bit and then swirls his tongue around the head, only long enough that Adrian wants more, then back down his shaft, sucking him to the back of his throat and swallowing. Adrian gasps.

Deran keeps sucking him off like that, deep and shallow, and then deepthroating him again until his nose is pressed against the curls of his pubic hair. And it’s then that Adrian knows he’ll come, like a wave and he’s hauling Deran off him, Deran’s fist wrapping around the base of his shaft to stroke gently as Adrian spills over his cheeks and nose. Some of it gets in his beard and Adrian leans down brings a hand to his chin to wipe it away and succeeds only to smear it in. He’s instantly sated and he leans down to kiss Deran, to taste himself and Deran feels like he’s drinking him in. It’s perfect and it feels like Belize. Little moments like this are what Adrian is always seeking. Little spaces in time that feel like he’s been transported somewhere else. A memory from the past. Somewhere they can never seem to return from. Somewhere they can never go back.

“Let me suck you off too.” He whispers against Deran's lips.

“Can’t, I’m finished,” Deran shrugs apologetically.

“You came when...?”

“Yeah. It was hot.” He might be blushing, it’s hard to tell in the dark and with that stubble. Adrian smiles anyway, then hauls Deran up onto the seat beside him from where he’d been awkwardly squished on the car floor, and leans against him. They stay like that for a long while. He’s starting to get cold but he doesn’t want to move and disturb the moment. He traces over Deran’s tattoo, the flamingo, and Deran shivers. He smoking, lounging in the back seat, still naked, flaccid dick laying against his thigh. He’s smirking and Adrian can see it even in the dark. And Adrian thinks we’re happy and then he stops himself short. No thinking in ‘we’s’, too dangerous. So he sits there staring at Deran in the dark, slightly illuminated by the moon, until Deran looks over at him, the ash off the end of his cig hanging dangerously long.

“What?” He asks around it. Pulls the smoke from his lips, “what?” He asks again.

“Nothing,” Adrian reply’s smiling “just looking.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

When the friction isn’t enough and his hole just aches to be filled, he shoves three fingers inside himself. Rough, too little lube, not enough prep but he’s trying to remember what it feels like to have Deran inside him. His body always seems to forget too easily. He comes all over his fresh sheets and feels a sob rising in his chest. _No crying over memories,_ he tells him self, _that doesn’t help jack shit._ So he cleans himself up and crawls back in bed and hopes to god he doesn’t dream of Deran Cody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
